Alrighty so I've now read all the Light Novels for I'm In Love With the Villainess. A lot of my comments thought that I should read them, and try to judge the series as a whole instead of just the anime, like I did in my video. I don't think I have a video about the books in me, but I may reference it in the future if it's themes are relevant. I'm currently not interested in doing like, review or retrospectives really, so I wouldn't have tons to say about it in an organized manner. This is mostly me just going through and doing some word vomit. It is long, but hey, I make scripted YouTube videos for fun, I love yapping.

So to recap my thoughts on the anime briefly:

However:

So, for the positives, those are still here. It quickly gets less goofy, but that's okay. By that point, Rae and Claire have a genuine relationship, and it's really convincing. They'll still squabble, but they do it for fun. There are a few moments where Inori (the author) basically just confirms it's foreplay to them. They reach a depth and maturity of relationship that is super nice, they move out into a cottage together and adopt children, it's amazing. There's one scene where one of their twin daughters needs comforting, and so Claire does her best, but Rae interrupts with her own form of comfort. Claire is relived that it works, but also feels bad that she didn't do a good job, and jealous that Rae can be a better mom. But then they talk about it, they have a discussion on parenting and come out of it with greater trust in the other's ability, and a promise to communicate fully about the needs of their children. That's so cool! They get more and more of that kind of thing as the series moves on.

One thing that I think a lot of romances have a hard time with is maturing the relationship. Like, they have a nice meet-cute, they have a cute and bashful first date, their first kiss is embarrassing, that's all fun. But then, the plot needs to progress, and the relationship still has a lot of the same characteristics, so you get stuff where they're shy about the relationship... and the have a kid or whatever. I'm thinking of Clannad (tho it's been a while and my memory is poor), but it comes up sometimes where they textually are married, but still feel very middle school. Here, they have the same character dynamic the whole way through, but after about they get married, the intensity will spike a lot, and they'll cut to black, and Rae will make a joke about how cool sex is. It works really well - it maintains the relationship dynamic that is fun, it explicitly shows their relationship progressing, and in a way that leaves me (an ace person) able to comprehend*.

There are a couple structural differences that make the novels a better experience for me. What the anime has adapted is the first volume, and a bit of the second. At the end of each volume, there are some bonus chapters, and an afterword from the author. Volume one contains the chapters: Introduction, the Academy Knights, and the Commoner Movement, and a bonus chapter where we flash back to Claire's childhood. Volume two picks up with chapters: The Scales of Love, School Holiday, Yu's Secret, The Palace, and Revolution.

The books have a nice trajectory, but the anime does not. The anime adapts from the Introduction to The Scales of Love, with the bonus chapter mostly inserted into the Academy Knights chapter (I think, it's been a second). This is what caused a lot of the weird contrast issues I had with the show. The Commoner Movement takes a lot of the background worldbuilding in the class tension and brings it to the forefront. It almost feels like the genre is going to change soon. In the anime, this is immediately followed by a love triangle arc that I think has it's own tonal issues. Something big feels like it's appearing over the horizon, and then we take a 180. This technically happens in the books too, but the formatting of the bonus chapter adds a lot of breathing room to calm everything down. The contrast is not so bright, because to continue the story, you had to pick up a whole other book. There doesn't exist the same level of whiplash.

This also cuts off a lot of the pathos of the story. Like, I don't really understand the logistic or marketing reasons why they would make it like this. I think they might still have been serial chapters at this point, rather than the collected volume I read. Or maybe that's just what they could fit in that twelve episode run? I don't know. But where I'm sitting now, it looks like they made a bad adaptation on purpose. I understand why they chose The Scales of Love to end on rather than School Holiday, but I dunno. Given everything, I assume they assumed there'd be no second season, and so had to find the best ending spot. The Commoner Movement would be a great season one ender, leaving plenty to build off in the future. But the anime ending where it did, it feels weirdly terminated, like there's stuff to build on, but also what? how? It does not feel at all that way in the novels, even though they are the same events in largely the same order. The base layer of story formatting helps it a lot.

And for the things only the novels do :)

I think in general they're pretty good. The writing of the books is alright, the word that is coming to mind is fanfic-y though A) I should actually read fanfic to make that comparison and B) I do not at all mean that negatively. It reminds me a bit of an Alice Oseman novel, like, the characters are so vastly important. Inori is absolutely rabid about these characters she's made, and I love that for her, and I love reading her books.

A very basic plot line of what happens after the anime ends:

I like the atmosphere of the later books, in their status quo. They take place in a yuri spinoff game and you can feel it. It's a little bit bonkers, super endearing. It's fun.

I do want to talk about the trans stuff tho. As I understand it, Inori herself is trans, so like. I don't wanna say she did it bad. I don't think bad is the way to say it anyway. I just don't prefer it this way.

So, the first trans woman they find is Yu. She was born female, but her mom wanted to guarantee her more status, so she used magic to change her sex, and so she's grown up into a man, with brief respites at the full moon. When Rae finds this out, she arranges to break the curse, allowing Yu to live as herself. And Rae has emotions about this, Yu has emotions about this, Claire hears Rae express what's going on in her head and quickly chooses to support her rather than uphold tradition. So at a church ceremony they're all helping with, they make a big fuss, and use equipment the church has on hand to break the curse in front of everyone. Yu gets sent out to the outskirts for a bit, but soon reassumes her prominent role in the narrative, eventually becoming a Cardinal.

An aside, I think it's kinda funny how in anime, "the church" is mostly legally distinct Catholicism. I mean, I know why, historically. But here, it's kinda legally distinct Episcopalism, so simplify drastically. Aesthetically Catholicism, but women are seen as more spiritual, and so therefore more likely to be promoted up the church's clergy ladder. By the way, speaking as someone born Mormon, thinking women are more spiritual does not mean they get official church positions, patriarchy determines who receives what power, and then cultural justifications are made in any which way to uphold that.

Anyway, in general I like this. There's a second trans character, and her gender identity is also solved with magic, and is also litigated in public. About the magic, I think it's... okay? In this setting, I don't expect anyone to get HRT or anything, and I'm glad that there exists a way for people to transition. In Yu's case, it's reactively undoing damage that was done, and in Joel's case, proactively stepping in to cause transition. I like that for Joel, you have to work forwards, there exists a transition. I'm rambling. In real life, there is no magic. You have to take a pill every day for years. Or do injections or patches or whatever. But it takes a long time to become yourself. So the magically swap is weird, because it's absolutely a power fantasy, knowing who you are getting to have it realized, but also it's emotionally not reflective of reality. I'm not condemning how these stories are told, I just personally don't know how I feel about them. Joel has some conflict with her family about it, where Yu just swaps pronouns and nearly nothings changes. I'm glad there's multiple trans characters, and I'm glad they have different stories.

I disliked Manaria as a foil to Rae in the anime, and I still don't really like her here. Sorry. I understand her narrative role and I just don't like it very much.

But the finale is good. I always love when stories inflate beyond their bounds. Mistborn book 2, later seasons of Attack on Titan, that sort of thing. It happens in this story too, about the revolution. And it happens again in the finale. What I liked about the anime early on was the textual queerness paired with subtextual queerness. It's gay because Rae is gay about Claire. It's also gay because Rae wants to be with Claire but can't because of societal pressure. It's also gay because the game's narrative is structured in a way that expects Rae to want to be with a prince, and forces her down those paths - making Rae become the author of her own custom Claire route. It works really well and is really satisfying when it's textual and subtextual. The finale works in kind of similar ways. Rae loves Claire to the end of the Earth, time and time again she always will. They will always find each other, and if that ever fades, a way will be found. There is nothing that can stop queer love, because by it's mere existence, reality around it is rewritten.

*I have a hard time with sex scenes, because they are important for characterization and character motivation, but when they occur it's like the text suddenly changes into a language I don't speak. It's most pronounced on cis/het works, but it's present in queer art too a bit. Logically, I have no problem with them, I just find it hard to speak their language.